Bush May Pay Back Gore-Loyal California by Tightening the Tap

Remember those annoying days of water rationing 10 years ago? We might see a return in the near future, thanks to drought, water feuds and the fact that President Bush has no love for California.

The penalty for an Al Gore vote in 2000 could be that your front lawn dies in 2003.

“It could be worse than it was in the early 1990s,” says Gerry Zimmerman of the Colorado River Board of California. The board hosts a meeting today featuring a Bush administration official who is expected to wag a finger at our gluttonous thirst and threaten to cut our Colorado River supply by the end of the year.

Ordinarily, my rule is to steer clear of water policy, because I get a blinding headache three paragraphs into any such story and then swallow my tongue. But this one has a lot going for it.

It got off to a good start when an Imperial Valley water official named Bruce Kuhn called U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein “a bureaucratic gasbag, pig-eyed sack of crap.” Feinstein had suggested that farmers let some of their land go dry so water can be piped to city folk in San Diego County.

Then we had a TV news report that it’s already so dry, desperate rats are invading homes and restaurants in Santa Monica. That city being what it is, I’m sure we can expect a study on the environmental side-effects of cloud-seeding, if not living-wage legislation for rodents.

And now we have Bennett Raley of the Department of the Interior visiting L.A. to beat us with a stick. Raley once worked for the same anti-environment law firm as James Watt, lobbied against reauthorization of the 1994 Clean Water Act and represented a business group in opposing the Endangered Species Act. So of course he was an obvious pick for Bush as assistant Interior secretary for water and science.

California has had a water deal in place for years, allowing it to draw beyond its allocation from the Colorado River, which feeds water to eight states. But now some of the other states want more for themselves.

Raley has offered to extend our sweetheart deal if we work out an agreement to transfer water from the sparsely populated Imperial and Coachella valleys to parched cities and suburbs in Southern California.

But if we don’t--and it’s a big if, given the rancor illustrated by the “pig-eyed sack of crap” battle cry--our extra allocation will be cut off on Dec. 31. The other trick we’ve got to pull off is to divert that water without killing off the already endangered Salton Sea.

A reasonable person might say, “Well, fair is fair.” For decades, we’ve stolen water like champs--L.A. was in fact built by world-class thieves--and we’re no longer the only overdeveloped state that wants to siphon off more than its share. But here’s the question of the day:

If we’d voted for Bush, would he be taking a strap to us like this?

Of course not. California is the president’s redheaded stepchild.

When we had what looked like an energy crisis last year and turned to him for help, Bush told us it was our problem. (Actually it turned out to be more his problem, wouldn’t you say? It was the beginning of the nosedive by his pals and advisors from Enron, not to mention the rest of corporate America.)

When he bought out the offshore drilling leases in his brother Jeb’s state of Florida, and we asked for the same deal in California, Bush told us to drop dead.

Our only hope for a fair shake from the White House is for Republican Bill Simon to take out Gov. Gray Davis, the human ATM. But given the IRS investigation into a possible tax shelter by Simon’s family’s business, and the candidate’s little magic act with his tax records--now you see them, now you don’t--he can’t be trusted to show up at a fund-raising barbecue without setting himself ablaze.

California, despite being punished for the sins of its electorate, sets the national standard for recycling water. Adan Ortega of the Metropolitan Water District says we’ve cut our consumption from 205 gallons a person per day in 1980 to 170 today. We’ve done so well, he thinks we could weather a year of reduced supply before serious rationing kicks in.

Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club, tells me California could do a better job with agricultural water conservation. But we’re no slouch in conserving both energy and water.

And now here’s the Bush administration telling us to dry up while it backs outrageously water-reckless energy policy in Wyoming, Montana and Colorado, all of which voted for guess who.

Despite howls from environmentalists and a nose-holding condemnation from his very own Environmental Protection Agency, a key part of Bush’s energy policy is coal-bed drilling for methane. The process drains aquifers, flushing millions of gallons of salty water to the surface, fouling waterways, ruining crops and driving ranchers nuts.

“It’s about as profligate a practice as you can think of, because this leaves the water to evaporate on the surface in one of the driest parts of the West,” says Maggie Fox, deputy executive director of the Sierra Club. “It’s past wasteful. It’s on to ridiculous, actually.”

The Colorado River Board of California meeting is from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. today at the Metropolitan Water District, 700 N. Alameda St. Feel free to go and tell Bennett Raley what you think. But keep in mind that “bureaucratic gasbag, pig-eyed sack of crap” has already been used.

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Steve Lopez writes Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. Reach him at steve.lopez@latimes.com.